OUR VIEW | Before more towers, take a reality check

Mark Goldberg's name resurfaced in the news this week, as the Seattle developer is again connected to a project he's long dreamed about: additional high-rise buildings on the downtown Bremerton waterfront.

This big idea was originally pitched in more heady days, before the housing collapse tore the economy apart and the neighboring condo projects on Washington Avenue struggled to sell — particularly those backed with public resources. Goldberg's building, The 400, was not involved with public money and was more successful in terms of sales, but time hasn't helped bring the ancillary benefits to downtown that the condos were supposed to have spurred.

And without that development — think a grocery store and particularly fast ferry service to Seattle — we're skeptical whether it's time to proceed down this path again.

To be clear, these would not be condominiums. Rather, the project calls for a 140-unit apartment complex on land Goldberg owns, with the other two towers only proposed. And this doesn't involve any public money.

But we question whether there's demand for this type of development next to the two sleepy existing towers. It's noteworthy that Ron Sher, owner of the old J.C. Penney building, still hasn't signaled a move toward residential development on the property he owns. Goldberg is contending with neighbors of Evergreen Rotary Park there over a proposed apartment complex — not because of the concept, which is easy for us to get behind, but because of the proposed size. We have the same concern in this case — ambitious investment is good, but appropriate expectations need to be considered.

City zoning codes allow this scope of project on Washington Avenue, and the plans were already accepted in 2009. But we'd prefer to see a more realistic project adding to the downtown core, in the interests of building slowly and surely toward a city hub we'd be proud of.